According to the most recent polls, public opinion of the Democratic lawmaker has plummeted since he was indicted in a second corruption case in less than 10 years.

A Monmouth University poll in New Jersey found that a clear majority of the state’s residents want Menendez to resign now -including nearly all of his party colleagues- a reversal from the last time he was under federal indictment.

Only 16 percent of the state’s voters approve of Menendez’s job, while three in four (74 percent) disapprove.

The last time the senator faced federal corruption charges, in May 2015, he got a much better job rating: 42 percent approved and 38 percent disagreed, noted the poll analysis released the day before by the university.

But those charges were dismissed and Menendez won re-election in 2018.

This week, as if the corruption charges that threaten to bury his political career were not enough, the lawmaker, who was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was charged with obstruction of justice.

The senator and his wife Nadine Menendez (who, by the way, at some point asked to be tried separately), were charged with 18 new charges, according to court documents.

The indictment alleges that the couple caused attorneys to make false statements to federal prosecutors in New York about a Mercedes-Benz convertible and mortgage payments that would have been the result of bribes from businessmen seeking the senator’s favors.

Robert Menendez allegedly agreed to use his official position to benefit Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, Fred Daibes and the Government of Egypt in exchange for hundreds of bribes’ for himself and his wife, which included ‘gold bullion, cash, and a luxury convertible,’ stated the indictment.

Menendez, who pleaded not guilty to charges of corruption and acting illegally as an agent of a foreign government, was indicted on new charges by a grand jury in Manhattan, just two months before the trial against him, his wife and two New Jersey businessmen begins on May 6.

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